Get A 10:1 ROI On Waste Reduction

Waste is all around us. Like water to a fish, we just don’t see it.

That waste translates to dollars and those dollars come out of profits.

• Field waste is easier to see, but few teams have a system for identifying it and reducing it.
  
  
• Office waste is nearly impossible to see, because it’s buried in processes we’ve been using for years.

Complicating this, 93% of contractors are seeing equal or greater profit margins in the booming economy. But… we’re leaving money on … not the table… the floor.According to a recent KPMG study, only 31% of all projects came within 10% of the budget in the past 3 years. Some of those costs are passed on to owners, but a lot of them you eat.It’s not just “mistakes” that cost profit. Routine handoffs between trades are unreliable at best (46% of the time, according to a Ballard and Howell survey).

Superintendents and other field leaders often end up buried in computer work instead of managing the field. Or they do their computer work after hours, when they should be with family and resting their brains for the challenges of the next day.

Your office staff looks busy (especially when you walk by). And they are busy. But much of their effort is wasted in unexamined, inefficient processes.

And you! 45% of construction professionals report spending more time than expected on non-optimal activities, according to an FMI + PlanGrid survey: “time spent on non-optimal activities such as fixing mistakes, looking for project data and managing conflict resolution accounts for $177.5 billion in labor costs per year in the U.S. alone.”

What’s the answer?

• You, as leader, can begin to practice “Essentialism” in Greg McKeown’s words. Divide everything into 3 categories:
  
  
  1.     What’s essential you are underinvesting in?
     
     
  2.     What is something non-essential you are over investing in?
     
     
  3.     How can I make it as easy as possible to make that trade off?
     
     

  Then only do what’s essential.

•    You can help your employees can learn simple but powerful tools to Map and Improve Processes and even whole Value Streams – online in 3-9 minute videos.
  
  
• In 3-9 minutes they can learn to do a “Waste Walk”. Office and Field.
  
  
• In other short videos they can learn Process Mapping. There are Action Items after the videos to step them through it.